


When You Were Young

by BlaspheME (vanishingvixen)



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Domestic, Gen, Introspection, Mommy Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 11:08:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7682113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanishingvixen/pseuds/BlaspheME
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirty four years later, not telling Erin what she saw is Carol's biggest regret. She's proud of her daughter, and wishes she had told her, all those long years ago. This fic is my redemption of Erin's Mom, because all we know about her is that Abby likes her, and she sent her daughter to therapy.<br/>EDIT: Erin's ghost has 2 names, apparently. I'm using the one from the movie novelization.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Were Young

**Author's Note:**

> I have an issue with how Erin's mom is treated in fandom. For a woman we know nothing about, she's written pretty consistently as a villain or bad mom. I'm not here for that. I think a mother who tried is much more interesting. 
> 
> Also, I have issues with the way the movie novelization and Ghosts From Our Past depicts Erin's haunting - because it makes literally zero sense, and demonizes a woman and the elderly. Old people can be scary, but they are generally not evil. Age does not make you evil - but it does make you a little crazy. 
> 
> I love the idea of Tiny!Erin just not getting the little old lady next door, and Momma!Gilbert trying so hard for her little girl.
> 
> (As a side, WHAT THE FUCK is up with Ghosts From Our Past stating Erin's parents paid kids to be her friends? This is such bullshit, I don't even know what to think. Also, were did two recent college grads get a laptop in 95? Was that a common thing, bc I don't think it was.)

Alice Barnard next door is old – very old. Her children come by from time to time, but they’re old, too, now, and their children are busy with their own children, young enough to still need attention. They try, but Alice is old. 

She’s old, and with her age has gone her temperment. She’s crotchety and mean, sits inside a darkened house and comes out only to complain. She scares the children of the neighborhood, but most especially, she scares Carol’s daughter, Erin.

Carol still makes Erin come with her to visit Alice at least once a week. Alice is old, and Alice is lonely, and Alice has trouble with a lot of things, like a brain to mouth filter, but she likes seeing Erin, missing teeth and tangled hair and all, likes hearing the little girl ramble on about school and books and whatever’s caught Erin’s attention. Alice’s own children are old, and she doesn’t see her great grand children. Erin gives her light, even if Erin doesn’t quite get that yet.

It’s no matter, she’ll understand when she’s older Carol thinks. She might not be happy, she might not have fond memories, but she’ll understand.

Alice dies on the fifth of May early in the morning. Carol finds out because her little girl comes running, screaming into her bedroom and tells her, sobbing, that Mrs. Barnard’s ghost is standing over her bed. 

Erin won’t go back into her bedroom all night. She sleeps between Carol and Robert, holding tight to Carol’s forearm. The next morning, Carol lets herself into Alice’s house. The old woman is lying in her bed, dead.

First, Carol calls emergency services. Then she calls Alice’s oldest son, the one she’s spoken with the most, and offers her condolences. He should hear it from her before the hospital calls.

She tells Erin when she gets home, sits her down at the kitchen table with oreos and a glass of milk.

Erin just shrugs and tells her she knows, then runs off to play.

That night, Carol wakes up from screams coming from her daughter’s room. She springs into action, sprinting down the hall to find her little girl, sitting up in bed and sobbing.

“She was here, Mom,” Erin says. “She was here.”

“Shh, honey, it’s fine, no one’s here. It was just a bad dream. Go back to sleep,” Carol tells her. “I’ll be right here.” She stays until Erin falls asleep and then goes back to bed.

“What was it,” her husband asks, still mostly asleep.  
“It was nothing,” she says. “Erin had a bad dream. Go back to sleep.”

In the morning, Erin is withdrawn and cranky, probably from not getting enough sleep the night before, and Carol stays home with her. They put on the television, and Erin falls asleep curled on her mother’s lap. Carol relishes these moments – they’re fading fast as Erin grows up, but for now it’s nice to have her little girl curled in her lap. She cards her fingers through Erin’s fine hair.

The next night, it happens again, and the night after that, and the night after that. Each time, Carol sees nothing when she walks into her daughter’s room. She holds her and sings her back to sleep, and goes back to her own room. Dark rings are developing under Erin’s eyes, but she can’t miss anymore school. On Friday morning, they attend the funeral. Erin clutches Carol’s hand the entire time, and won’t go say goodbye to the body.

That night, Erin sleeps with Carol. She sleeps the whole night through, no nightmares or screaming.

Saturday night, she’s back in her own bed, and she doesn’t sleep, and this is when Carol and Robert start talking about sending her to a doctor. She’s clearly not handling the death of their neighbor well at all. This is her first brush with it, and maybe she needs a little help.

They get an appointment for Monday, and Erin says the ghost of Mrs. Barnard visits her every night.

Tuesday night, Carol sleeps in Erin’s bed with her. She’s not quite asleep yet, one arm wrapped around her little girl. She’s almost out, and the room is dark and cool, until it begins to glow green – and there, right in front of her, is Alice. She puts a finger to her lips and whispers, “I just wanted to see her sleep.”

“You need to go,” Carol says.

Alice just smiled at her, and faded from view.

Carol tells no one. She tells no one, not even her daughter, and she sleeps in the same bed with her for the rest of the year. Alice Barnard shows up from time to time, each time a little less bright, a little more see-through.

“Thank you,” she tells Carol, in April almost a year later. Then she’s gone.

Erin stays in therapy, but that’s because she’s anxious and overly controlled. She’s a stressed out little girl, and Carol doesn’t blame her.

She also doesn’t tell her what she saw.

Thirty four years later, it’s her biggest regret.


End file.
